Let’s face it: No one likes the automatic toll increases that will go into effect on the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway on Jan. 1. But what commuters like less is bad traffic, closed bridges and potholed roads. And what taxpayers like less is overpaying interest on our state debt. 

Raising tolls 3% means a tiny increase of 3 cents on a $1 toll for motorists. In a time of inflation, any increase is no doubt hard to swallow but when it comes to New Jersey taxpayers this is actually one tax where we get a great return on our investment, for two reasons.   

First, most of the other 49 states are “moochers” when it comes to New Jersey. We get a smaller return on what we invest than most any other state. As for the turnpike tolls (a tax), more than one-third are paid by out-of-state vehicles passing through. We get to keep the money for in-state transportation projects.   

Second, those transportation projects pay a meaningful dividend for New Jersey commuters. For every $1 invested in improving our roads and bridges, it generates at the least $1.50 in economic activity — ranging from increased efficiency spending to less in traffic to money saved for less wear-and-tear on commuters’ cars (potholes) along with the wages paid to the workers who are doing all the work on the roadways. 

Let’s keep in mind that New Jersey’s roads are in awful condition. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ latest infrastructure report card, our state’s are worse than the national average, which was C-. The report noted that New Jersey faces infrastructure challenges of its own. For example, driving on roads in need of repair in New Jersey costs each driver $713 per year, and 7.8% of bridges are rated structurally deficient. This deteriorating infrastructure impedes New Jersey’s ability to compete in an increasingly global marketplace.  

Success in a 21st-century economy requires serious, sustained leadership on infrastructure investment at all levels of government. Delaying these investments only escalates the cost and risks of an aging infrastructure system, an option that New Jersey and its families can no longer afford. 

Now that the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which runs the turnpike and parkway, and the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates the Expressway, have planning certainty, they will ensure an aggressive capital plan to fund needed repairs as well as game-changing highway widening projects and additional meaningful investments. Let’s remember, New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation. That means lots of cars are in tight locations essentially by design. We are the most suburban state in the nation as well, around which cars were designed as the primary means of transportation.   

Increasingly, New Jersey is moving from a manufacturing state to a logistics one. That means trucks need to move their products as the warehouse facilities in Bayonne, along the turnpike, and the ports of Newark and Elizabeth handle record amounts of inventory. The facilities are here in part because of our access to Philadelphia and New York.   

What Ben Franklin said about our state 250 years ago — that New Jersey is a barrel tapped at both ends, referring to our proximity to Philadelphia and New York — is even more true today. If products can’t move easily, we will lose thousands of jobs with the resulting loss of home values, diminishing our overall economy. That’s why the turnpike expansion at Exit 8A was so important and why Gov. Murphy is so on-point about expanding the turnpike in Jersey City. 

Tourism as well is so important to our state and toll increases helped to fund expanding the parkway south of Long Beach Island, as well as eliminating all the traffic lights in Cape May. That’s what makes it so rich when some of the politicians who applauded these projects decry the toll increases that pay for them. 

At the same time, the elected officials who criticize the automatic toll increases also complain about New Jerseyans paying too much when the state’s credit rating drops. As a practical matter, when it comes to New Jersey’s toll roads, allowing the modest annual increases to go into effect should “remove the need for periodic large rate increases,” Fitch Ratings analysts said earlier this month as they gave the turnpike authority’s bond issue an A+ rating. The high rating saves tens of millions of dollars in interest payments that allows more funding for road improvements. 

It’s easy to complain about automatic toll increases. It is less politically convenient — and far more important — to put them into the right context for all New Jerseyans.